While Brandeis students can attend the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston at any time for free with their IDs, the Museum's College Night taking place this Thursday is worth a special trip. Besides viewing the Museum's century-spanning collection and newly opened Persian art exhibit, students can also take part in a variety of games, enter raffles to win iPods, gift certificates and other prizes and attend a couple of free concerts.Berklee School of Music graduate and indie pop musician St. Vincent will perform twice in the MFA courtyard. St. Vincent, née Annie Clark, is a one-woman band, celebrated for solid songwriting and inventive use of analog production processes. Additionally, Berklee student and singer-songwriter Liz Longley will perform in BRAVO, the museum's restaurant. Longley's show will be followed by a dance party led by a student disc jockey.

A scavenger hunt and free snacks may serve as the central pull for local college students, but the true attraction this Thursday night will be the chance to absorb the artistic treasures of ancient Persia at the "Art and Empire: Treasures from Assyria in the British Museum" exhibition with hundreds of your fellow students. The artifacts in the show have remarkably detailed descriptions; because the Assyrian language has been decoded and much is known about their cultural practices, the artifacts have all been identified. Stone and clay tablets covered with cuneiform writing have been identified as marriage contracts, descriptions for a treatment for headaches and mathematical tables.

Although the show includes the famous "Dying Lion" carving from about 640 BC-a grotesque relief of a lion vomiting blood after receiving a fatal wound from a hunter's spear-it also showcases one of the most charming recovered artifacts from the Assyrian society: a collection of dog figurines. According to Amelia Carignan of the MFA's communications department, the dogs were found with a tablet instructing dog sculpture owners to display their sculptures 10 at a time, in two groups of five. Why this is necessary is less clear. However, the dogs also came with comical names that may have been terrifying in the time of the Assyrians but today take on an almost precious quality. Names include "Biter of his Foe," "Don't Think-Bite," "Expeller of Evil" and "Loud is his Bark."

After a tour through the Assyrian exhibition, the MFA's other galleries will also be open for students to peruse, and, though some of the museum is under construction, it's worth taking a look at what is available. While some Brandeis students find themselves at the museum several times a semester for class or for pleasure, some of us don't make the trip into green-line Boston quite as often. If you fall in the latter camp, this Thursday night makes for an excellent excuse to expose yourself to the higher reaches of art while also trying to win free electronics.